Districts of Libya

Updates:

Risto Nykänen pointed out that Libya's time has switched to UTC+1 with daylight saving time in the summer. The change
took place in November 2012.

With the victory of the Libyan transitional government in 2011-08, the formal name of the country will be changed to
the simple name "Libya".

Update 4 to Geopolitical Entities and Codes, the successor to FIPS PUB 10-4, was issued on 2011-04-30. It changes the
transliterations of the names of four districts.

Update 1 to the U.S. standard "Geopolitical Entities and Codes" is dated 2010-08-20. It assigns FIPS codes to the 22
districts, and changes their status from baladiyat (municipalities) to shabiyat (districts). There is one apparent
mistake: it tells us to delete Tukrah (LY43) from the list, but Tukrah was already deleted from the most
recent earlier version (April 2010); in fact, it had been deleted in a change notice in 1992.

Newsletter II-2, an update to the ISO 3166-2 standard, is dated 2010-06-30. It assigns ISO codes to the 22 districts
now in force, which it calls popularates.

Erratum: Population data given in the book are 1984 estimates. There was no 1991 census.

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter number I-5, dated 2003-09-05, shows 34 municipalities (Arabic: sha`biyah) of Libya, matching
the list given for ~2001 under Change history, below. The source for this list is "Information from French Embassy
to Tripoli, 2002-09".

Country overview:

Short name

LIBYA

ISO code

LY

FIPS code

LY

Language

Arabic (ar)

Time zone

+2

Capital

Tripoli

In 1900, the vilayet of Tripoli, a part of the Ottoman Empire, covered roughly the same territory as modern Libya.
It was conquered by Italy, and became an Italian colony by the Treaty of Ouchy on 1912-10-18. In 1939, the four
provinces of Libya became an integral part of Italy under the name Libia Italiana. After World War II, Great Britain
held Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, and France held Fezzan, under temporary military administration. On 1951-12-24,
Libya was reunited and became an independent country.

Territorial extent:

The UN LOCODE page for Libya lists locations in the country, some of them with their latitudes and longitudes, some with their ISO 3166-2 codes for their subdivisions. This information can be put together to approximate the territorial extent of subdivisions.

Origins of names:

Tripoli: Greek tri: three, polis: city (Tripoli was formed by merging three cities)

Change history:

Libya has traditionally been divided geographically into three regions: Cyrenaica (or Barca) in the east,
Fezzan in the southwest, and Tripolitania in the northwest.

1919-05-17: Libya divided into Cyrenaica and Tripolitania provinces.

1919-09-12: France ceded some territory from Algeria to Libya, where it was incorporated into Tripolitania
province, straightening the border somewhat.

1919: Egypt and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan ceded territory to Libya. Both cessions were incorporated into Cyrenaica.

1926: Egypt ceded more territory to Cyrenaica, leaving the border in its modern position, which follows the
meridian of 25° East quite closely.

1934: Cyrenaica province split into Benghazi and Derne provinces; Tripolitania split into Tripoli and Misurata.
The largest parts of each of the provinces, in the south, were under military administration as the Libyan Sahara
Territory.

~1943: Occupying British and French forces established the three provinces listed here (source [3]):

~1973: It appears that there was a temporary reorganization. Benghazi governorate was reduced to a small
northern stub, containing the city of Banghazi. Al Khalij governorate was formed from the remainder of Benghazi
and the eastern part of Misratah. Misratah, in return, was augmented by the eastern parts of Gharyan and Sabhah.
Awbari merged with the remainder of Sabhah. The net effect on the list of governorates was that Awbari was
replaced by Al Khalij. The 1973 census reports the following divisions (source [13]):

1995-08-02: Libya reorganized into 13 municipalities. I have two data sources for this division, but they disagree.
I give them both here, in hopes that someone will be able to reconcile them.

Municipality

ISO

Population

Al Butnan

BU

151,240

Al Jabal al Akhdar

JA

381,165

Al Jabal al Gharbi

JG

316,970

Al Jufrah

JU

39,335

Al Wahah

WA

62,056

Al Wusta

WU

240,574

Az Zawiyah

ZA

517,395

Benghazi

BA

665,615

Fazzan

FA

314,029

Misratah

MI

488,573

Naggaza

NA

244,553

Sawfajjin

SF

76,401

Tarabulus

TB

1,313,996

13 municipalities

4,811,902

ISO: Municipality codes from ISOstandard 3166-2, first edition.

Population: 1995-08 census(preliminary).

Source: [4].

Municipality

Population

Area(km.²)

Capital

Al Jabal al-Akhdar

308,300

37,000

Al Bayda’

Al Jabal al-Gharbi

204,300

87,000

Gharyan

Al Kufrah

23,800

484,000

Al Kufrah

Az Zawiyah

326,500

4,000

Az Zawiyah

Benghazi

512,000

15,000

Benghazi

Khalij Surt

382,100

376,000

Surt

Margib

408,900

29,000

Al Khums

Marzug

45,200

350,000

Marzug

Nikat al-Khums

196,000

101,000

Zuwarah

Sabha

121,700

82,000

Sabha

Tarabulus

1,083,000

3,000

Tripoli

Tubruq

110,900

84,000

Tubruq

Wadi al Ha’it

49,600

10,500

Awbari

13 municipalities

3,772,300

1,759,540

Population: 1988 estimates

Areas: don't add up to the total shown.

Source: [5].

Note: Source [6], dated 2000, doesn't have a complete list of subdivisions of Libya, but its partial
lists may serve as a basis for further investigation.

The report's author (D. Abdalla El Abed Abou Jaafar) displays a good command of English, but Libya is consistently spelled
"Lybia"; Jamahiriya is spelled "Jamahyria" on the first page and "Jamahirya" subsequently. This suggests that he uses an
idiosyncratic method of transliteration from Arabic to English.

The following definitions are given:

"The Fundamental Popular Council: This is the local legislative power that comprises all adult men and women at the level
of the first administrative unit (The Quarter)

"The Popular: This is the regional executive power that corresponds to municipality or department in other countries."

In the remainder of the report, the geographic breakdown is by "regions". Tables in the report don't purport to list all of
the regions of Libya, but just selected ones. In Table 3, on the first page, there are twelve regions listed: Al Beida, Al
Khams, Al Marj, Benghazi, Darana, Elzawiya, Ijdabiya, Mesrata, Sabha, Souf El Jin, Tobrok, and Tripoli. In Table 5, on the
second page, Al Chatek, Al Jafra, Al Kobbeh, Al Markab, Al Noukat Al Khams, Al Wahat, Benghazi, Darna, Marzouk, Mesrata, Nalout,
Sabha, Sahl El Jaffara, Sart, Tripoli, and Wadi El Hayat are listed as regions.

Some of these regions can be tentatively identified with one of either the old 25 municipalities or the newer 13.
Since Al Bayda' was the capital of Al Jabal al Akhdar (old), Al Beida may be the same as either the old or the new Al
Jabal al Akhdar. Al Khams is probably an alternate spelling of Al Khums (old). Al Marj was the capital of Al Fatih (old).
Benghazi (Banghazi) is the name of both an old and a new. Darnah (Darana, Darna) was an old. Elzawiya is probably the
same as Az Zawiyah (old and new). Ijdabiya is probably Ajdabiya (old). Mesrata is Misratah (old and new). Sabha was an
old. Souf El Jin corresponds to Sawfajjin (old and new). Tobrok is Tobruk (old). Tripoli is Tarabulus (old and new). Al
Jafra is Al Jufrah (old and new). Al Noukat Al Khams matches An Nuqat al Khams (old). Marzouk is Murzuq (old). Sahl El
Jaffara is probably the Al Jifarah municipality created in ~2001. Sart is Surt (old).

~2001: Libya reorganized into 34 municipalities, as shown in the table below. According to Jose
Gavinha, the changes from the 25 municipalities of ~1987 to the 34 municipalities of ~2001 were as follows. Al `Aziziyah
municipality renamed to Al Jifarah; Al Fatih municipality renamed to Al Marj; Al Khums municipality renamed to Al Marqab;
Sawfajjin renamed to Bani Walid; Tarhunah renamed to Tarhunah-Masallatah; Tobruk renamed to Al Butnan; Yafran renamed to
Yafran-Jadu. Al Wahah municipality split from Ajdabiya; Al Hizam al Akhdar municipality split from Al Fatih; Sabratah Surman
municipality formed by taking the Sabratah area from An Nuqat al Khams and the Surman area from Az Zawiyah; Awbari municipality
split into Ghat and Wadi al Hayat; Al Qubbah municipality split from Darnah; Nalut municipality split from Ghadamis; Mizdah
municipality split from Gharyan; Al Qatrun municipality split from Murzuq; Jaghbub municipality split from Al Butnan (formerly
Tobruk); Tajura' wa an Nawahi al Arba` municipality split from Tripoli. The following additional changes are uncertain: part
of Az Zawiyah may have been transferred to Al Jifarah; part of Benghazi may have been transferred to Al Hizam al Akhdar; Zlitan
merged with a neighboring municipality, but we don't know whether it was Al Marqab (formerly Al Khums) to the west, or Misratah
to the east.

Sources:

[1] Samuel Villavicencio found a census report for Libya at http://www.tedad-libya.info/tedad_2006.htm (now
a dead link; probably accessed about 2007-09-01). It showed 20 of the 22 districts, omitting Al Jufrah and
Wadi ash Shati'. It agrees with source [9], except that [9] is more complete.

[2] Celvin Ruisdael found 1995 population data for Libya at http://www.alelam.net/dir/population.htm (now a
dead link; accessed about 2004-11). I believe this was a page of the Libya Media Organization. In order to make
the column add up correctly, I transposed two digits in the population of Bani Walid. It listed populations for
31 out of the 34 municipalities, omitting Al Qatrun, Jaghbub, and Tajura' wa an Nawahi al Arba`.

[10] An ISO report cited a list obtained from a 2002 publication of the Bureau d'Études Toponymiques (BET),
derived from information from the French Embassy to Tripoli, 2002-09. The list matches sources [11] and [12].